


Nothing Else

by lafiametta



Category: Damnation (TV)
Genre: F/M, Following 1x10, I Just Have A Lot of Feelings About This Show, Post-Series, Prompt Fic, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-11
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 23:10:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13646382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lafiametta/pseuds/lafiametta
Summary: Creeley returns to Bessie, but where will they go from here?





	Nothing Else

**Prompt:** “What made Creeley buy Bessie that dress?  Also, we heard Bessie say Creeley’s name, but we never heard him say her name.  Can you write something where we actually see them intimate, not just sex?”

* * *

She cried for a long time that night. Never made a sound, though – not as the tears pooled and rounded down her cheeks, not as her body pressed alongside his, shuddering every now and then with some silent reckoning of emotion.

Creeley just held her hand and let her cry, threading her fingers more tightly into the warmth of his grip every time he felt her tremble. He might have cried too, were it possible for him to do so. But every tear he might have ever thought to shed was gone, beaten out of him many years ago, until all that had remained was the bitter aftertaste of shame that he had once been so soft and pitiable, just a child mewling in the dark for a mother that would never return for him.

He would never be that child again, he had told himself so many times. There would be nothing – and no one – to care that much about, nothing that he would allow to burrow into that space that might have once been occupied by his heart.

Nothing, that is, until her.

As the hours passed, the tears eventually drying in lines along her warm brown skin, he could sense her growing exhaustion, and so he pulled her into his arms and laid her down next to him on the bed. He didn’t bother turning off the lights or removing any of their clothes, but instead just curled his arm around her waist, watching as her eyes fell closed and her face relaxed against the softness of the white cotton pillowcase.

There was only the two of them left then, nothing else in the wide world, or at least it seemed to feel that way to Creeley as he let himself succumb to sleep alongside her.

It was an hour or so before dawn when he woke – he had lived long enough on a ranch to recognize the signs that presaged the arrival of the morning sun – and after snapping a tiny crick out of his neck he glanced over at her, only to see that she was already awake. Maybe she had been up for a while, because her dark eyes were trained on him with a curious line of intent, as if she had somehow just found him in her bed and couldn’t quite make heads or tails of him at all.

They lay there for a while, Creeley watching her as she watched him, his mind memorizing her in degrees: the full pink curve of her bottom lip, the thick lines of her lashes as they fanned upwards, the way the silver chain of his locket glinted against her dark skin, the weight of it falling against the roundness of her breast. Her expression had slowly turned softer, warmth seeping bit by bit into her gaze. She turned fully onto her side and propped herself up on her elbow.

“You never told me ‘bout that yellow dress,” she said, her voice low and still heavy with sleep.

“What about it?” he drawled. His speech was barely intelligible at the best of times, much less before the sun was even up.

“Why’d you buy it for me?” Her mouth ticked up with a wicked little start. “Or do you just like screwing girls in yellow dresses?”

He let out a short huff of amusement, letting his gaze narrow on her as he raised his eyebrows suggestively. Rather than being put off by them, he had come to enjoy her not-infrequent displays of vulgarity. He’d known too many whorehouse girls who played the coquette, all innocence and batting eyes until they had your pants around your ankles and a knife up against your balls. But Bessie was always herself, curious and brazen in equal turn, honest even about her deceptions, and by God he loved the look of her mouth when she said something filthy.

Creeley shrugged, pursing his lips into a knowing half-grin. “Maybe I jus’ thought you’d look pretty in it.”

She smiled, clearly pleased with his answer, and he took the opportunity to snake his arm around her a little tighter. There was more to the story, of course, but he didn’t really know how to tell her, not in a way that would make much sense to her, or even in a way that made all that much sense to him.

It had been early in his newfound career working for Eggers Hyde, and he had been on his way to Pueblo, sent to put a quick end to a steelworkers’ strike. But on a downtown Denver street he found himself stopping right in the middle of the sidewalk, staring up into the wide window display of a Sears Roebuck. The domestic scene behind the glass had been laid out in startling simplicity: it was just a family, gathered in a kitchen, sitting down to their breakfast. Their table was bountifully arrayed, covered in sparkling new chinaware and serving dishes, the checkered linen napkins just waiting to be tucked into a lap. The father – or at least the plaster mannequin meant to represent him – was wearing a smart suit with shoes polished to a mirror shine, while sitting next to him, the children – two of them, a boy and a girl – were dressed in their school clothes, their calves dangling towards the floor arrayed in spotless white knee socks. And finally, standing near the stove, in a position clearly meant to show off the gleaming host of modern appliances surrounding her, was the mother, her slim figure clad in an elegant yellow day dress.

All of it was so pure and perfect, so manifestly _right_ , but even so, Creeley couldn’t help but feel just the tiniest bit sorrowful as he continued to stare at the tableau set out before him, ignoring the strangers who brushed by as they went about their business. Such perfection, such rightness, he understood, would never be for the likes of him, not even if he went inside the store and purchased every item in that window display. In fact, it was hard for him to imagine a world in which he could ever be deserving of the life that was for sale in that Sears Roebuck; he was nothing in this world, just a thug, a soulless gun-for-hire, and even if he hadn’t committed the crimes he had been imprisoned for, he had since committed other ones besides. That spotless life, that loving family, that mother in her beautiful dress – it was all just a ridiculous dream, and would never be anything more than that.

So how was he to explain to her that when he saw that cotton dress hanging up on the wall of the Holden general store his mind had not only flashed back to that brightly-lit window display, but also, somehow, to a vision of her standing there as part of it, dressed in yellow, her wide smile reserved for him alone?

He would sound like a goddamn idiot trying to tell her something like that.

Compelled by some strange tender urge, he reached up and brushed the back of his forefinger against her cheek, so smooth and fine, so very warm under his touch. There were still the faint traces of last night’s tears along her skin, a reminder of all that had passed between them, all the manifold ways he had brought her to grief. He had so much to answer for, he knew, but he could start with the most recent wounds, where the cuts were still fresh.

“Listen,” he mumbled, knowing the words he needed even as half of them got lost somewhere within his throat. “What I said to you, b’fore I left last night…”

“Creeley…”

“No, listen.” He shook his head a little, urging her to quiet. “Those things I said, I wouldn’t… I don’t…” He paused, swallowing back his own frustrations. This thing that overcame him whenever he was around her – it was like being in a foreign land, with no map or well-marked trail left to guide him.  

“I know why you said it,” she quickly offered.

“You do?”

“Yeah,” she said as she looked back at him, her gaze soft and open, her dark eyes free of any hint of judgment. “Didn’t make it hurt any less, but I know why.”

Creeley made a rough murmur of assent, still not trusting himself fully to words, not when all he could feel were a thousand pinpricks of shame in remembering what he had called her, the rough manner in which he had forced her from the room. But at least she knew, she understood why he had done it: there had been no other way, at least in his fairly limited imagination, of getting her as far away from danger as possible. And she was here with him now – safe from that snake in the grass Eggers Hyde – and for that he could only feel a wide measure of gratitude.

His arms reached out, seemingly of their own accord, and drew her closer towards him, until she lay nestled in his grasp, her face tucked into the hollow where his neck and collarbone met. He breathed in, warm hints of violet and jasmine filling his senses like a long-forgotten memory, and he turned to let his cheek rest against the soft cloud of her hair.

“Oh, honey,” he whispered, “You know I’d die b’fore I’d let somethin’ happen to you. You know that, don’t ya, Bessie?”

She nodded tightly against his chest, and he could have sworn he felt a tear or two as they seeped into the fabric of his shirt. Creeley said nothing, but simply pulled her closer, knowing that soon enough the pale light of morning would begin to filter through the window, the darkness banished, if only for a time.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on Tumblr (@lafiametta) about Damnation - I need to commiserate!


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